HBS Round 2 Interviews

I realized that I had promised some news about this on January 15 and didn’t want you to have to wait over the long weekend to hear this (Note: We are closed on Monday, January 16 in observance of Martin Luther King Day).

Here’s the story:

Round 2 interviews will be conducted between February 15 and March 9. We will be in London, Paris, Shanghai, Mumbai, Dubai, San Francisco, Palo Alto, and New York in addition to the HBS campus. Skype interviews may also be an option for candidates located outside the United States who are unable to travel. Full details will be available in the interview invitations.

This is our plan for timing:

We will send out email invitations on the following 3 Tuesdays – January 31, February 7, and February 14. On February 14, all candidates not invited to interview will be notified of their “release.”

Now, please pay attention – this is a new level of transparency that I hope is helpful, but I need you to understand that I am talking about what happened in Round 1 vs. telling you exactly what will happen in Round 2 (which we obviously DON’T KNOW now).

The pattern of interview invitation volume in Round 1 was:

Week 1 (first wave of invitations): 750 invitations sent

Week 2 (second wave): 80 invitations sent

Week 3 (third/final wave): 25 invitations sent

Round 2 won’t be identical, but I think it will be directionally similar. Please hear me when I say that the timing of the interview invitation is NOT a signal of the strength of a candidate. The only thing that it maps to is the ability of our Admissions Board to move through their (large) reading allocations.

I hope this is clear and helpful – if it’s not, call me at 617-496-6835 and tell me so.